Cardiology involvement and mortality in adult patients with advanced solid cancer complicated by atrial fibrillation

Takeshi Sato, Zhehao Dai, Jun Hashimoto, Sachiko Ohde, Nobuyuki Komiyama, Takayuki Inomata, Teruo Yamauchi

Abstract

The association between comorbid atrial fibrillation (AF) and survival in adult patients with advanced solid cancer, as well as the impact of cardiology involvement in such patients, remains unclear.

Introduction

With recent advancements in cancer screening, diagnosis, and treatment, prognosis has improved substantially [1]. As survival is prolonged, late morbidity and mortality have become major concerns in managing patients with cancer. Cardiovascular disease is the second most frequent cause of late morbidity and mortality among cancer survivors [2,3], represented prominently by atrial fibrillation (AF).

Methods

This single-center retrospective cohort study recruited patients from St. Luke’s International Hospital, Tokyo, Japan. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of St. Luke’s International University (approval No. 18-J013), which waived written informed consent from patients given the observational nature of the study and the anonymity in the analysis.

Results

We initially screened 2,075 patients diagnosed with advanced solid cancer between January 2008 and December 2017 at St. Luke’s International Hospital, Tokyo, Japan.

Discussion

In this retrospective cohort study, we demonstrated that comorbid AF per se was not independently associated with mortality in adult patients with advanced solid cancer. Furthermore, in patients with advanced cancer complicated by AF, cardiology involvement was associated with lower all-cause mortality.

Conclusions

In adult patients with advanced solid cancer, AF per se was not independently associated with increased mortality. In patients with advanced solid cancer complicated by AF, involvement of a cardiology provider was associated with lower all-cause mortality, likely contributed by both cardiovascular and non-cardiovascular causes.

Citation: Sato T, Dai Z, Hashimoto J, Ohde S, Komiyama N, Inomata T, et al. (2025) Cardiology involvement and mortality in adult patients with advanced solid cancer complicated by atrial fibrillation. PLoS ONE 20(2): e0319342. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0319342

Editor: Yoshihiro Fukumoto, Kurume University School of Medicine, JAPAN

Received: November 21, 2024; Accepted: January 30, 2025; Published: February 25, 2025

Copyright: © 2025 Sato et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting information files.

Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

 

Source: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0319342#abstract0